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Chapter Text

The war had ended only a few months earlier, and yet, in Hermione Granger’s mind, the idea of peace remained a fragile illusion, a mirage that dissolved the moment she reached for it. She had seen too many corpses, smelled too much ash, heard too many screams to believe in a bright future. Victory carried a bitter taste — iron and salt, blood and tears clinging to her throat.

At Hogwarts, the stones still bore the scars of battle. When she walked the half-repaired corridors, the hammering of nails and the sparks of repairing spells could not drown out the phantom echoes: cries of pain, bursts of spells, the crash of collapsing walls. Every step revived a war people insisted was over.

But there was a burden heavier than memories: finding her parents. Hermione had always known the day would come. During the war, in a desperate act, she had erased their memories, turning them into Wendell and Monica Wilkins, an ordinary Australian couple. It had been her way of saving them — but also a silent betrayal. She had torn her own face from their lives. And now she had to face the consequences of that choice.

The journey to Sydney felt unreal. The endless airport queues, the shrill voices on loudspeakers, the oval windows framing cotton-like clouds — everything had the feverish texture of a dream. Travelers hurried past like fleeting shadows. She left behind Harry and Ron, each busy rebuilding their own lives, and loneliness seeped into every corner, cold and relentless, even beneath Australia’s burning sun.

Weeks of quiet research in Muggle records finally led her to their address. When she found herself before their house — a modest villa with pale shutters, framed by blazing bougainvillea — her heart pounded so violently she had to lean against the gate to keep from collapsing. The hot air, thick with eucalyptus, burned her lungs. Was she really about to shatter their illusion of happiness?

She knocked gently.

The door opened. Her father appeared, hair cropped short, glasses slipping down his nose. His smile was exactly as she remembered — except it no longer belonged to her.

“Hello,” he said warmly, convinced he was greeting a stranger.

Hermione’s fingers trembled around her wand. She whispered the incantation, and magic surged through the air like an invisible wave. Memories erupted, brutal and unstoppable. She watched her father stagger, a hand flying to his forehead.

“Hermione…”

His voice was little more than a breath, but every syllable quivered with shock and pain.

Her mother came rushing in, alarmed by the noise. Hermione repeated the spell. In Monica’s clear eyes, tears welled up as the erased images returned: a wild-haired child, a studious pupil, a young witch.

The silence that followed was crueller than any reproach. Hermione stepped forward, arms open, but her mother recoiled. And yet, in that sudden movement, Hermione thought she caught a flicker of hesitation — her mother’s fingers tightened on the doorframe, as if tenderness had nearly kept her back before distance won.

“How could you?” she asked, her voice breaking, tears spilling despite herself.

Hermione felt her insides twist.

“I wanted to protect you… You would never have survived this war, I—”

“We were your parents,” her father cut in, jaw clenched. “You had no right to decide for us. You stole our memories. You erased us from your life as if we had never existed.”

Each word struck like a frozen blade. Hermione would have preferred shouting, explosive anger. This calm, measured tone was far worse. She tried to explain — Voldemort, the Death Eaters, the urgency, the fear. But the more she spoke, the colder their faces became.

“You made us strangers,” her mother whispered, trembling. “How do you expect us to ever trust you again?”

Hermione broke down.

“Tell me… tell me what I must do for you to forgive me.”

A heavy silence. Then her father’s voice, icy:

“Give up magic. If you want to stay with us, you leave all of that behind. Live here, in Australia. No wand. No spells. Only us. A normal life.”

It felt as though the ground opened beneath her. To renounce magic was to renounce her very self. But in their cold eyes — and her mother’s poorly contained tears — she saw there was no other choice.

That night, in the room they had given her, she took out her wand. She caressed the polished wood, remembering every victory, every protection, every battle. Then, with trembling hands, she placed it at the bottom of a chest. It was her last act of magic.

•●•

The days that followed took on a strange texture. Hermione lived under their roof, but felt like a stranger on trial. Australia surrounded her with beauty: dazzling beaches, dense forests, vibrant cities. But her heart remained in England, bound to the part of herself she had buried.

She enrolled at university, choosing art history. Vanished civilizations, fading frescoes, fragile manuscripts — all of it echoed her own life, a quest to salvage what time threatened to erase. She excelled, admired for her intellect and tenacity, yet her classmates found her distant, trapped in silences no one dared to break.

As for love, it always slipped away. A few relationships began, but ended quickly. Daniel, an archaeology student, tired of her silences. Sarah, a literature enthusiast, could not understand the past Hermione refused to share. Michael, brimming with enthusiasm, wanted a future too fast, and she pulled away. Each rupture left an invisible scar, deepening her solitude.

Then illness struck. Her father was diagnosed with an advanced cancer. Hermione fought that battle by his side, but this time, no magic, no knowledge could change fate. She spent nights at the hospital, holding his hand, reading articles aloud, smoothing his brow to ease his pain. He passed one spring morning, peacefully, his hand still locked in hers.

The funeral was simple. Hermione and her mother knew there was no reason left to stay in Australia. They sold the house and flew back to London.

Back home, Hermione found a city both familiar and foreign: the drizzle, the fog, the hurried pavements — but no hidden magical world behind it anymore. She moved with her mother into a quiet apartment. Museums and institutions soon sought her expertise, but her evenings remained silent. Her old friends stayed absent. She had sealed that door shut.

•●•

Across the Channel, in another kind of silence, Severus Snape too was learning how to survive.

Nagini’s venom had nearly killed him, and his body still bore the scars, livid and painful. Saved at the last moment, he spent weeks in hospital, haunted by the serpent’s bite even in dreams. Then came the trial, a chamber filled with accusing eyes. Harry Potter testified. Minerva McGonagall as well. The memories offered were enough to prove his loyalty. Not innocence, but necessity. He was acquitted. And immediately, he vanished.

He slammed the door on the wizarding world, took on another name — Prince, his mother’s — and became Charles Prince. An alias, yet also a refuge.

At first, he scraped by. A few tutoring lessons in Latin and Greek paid for his meals. For behind the potions, Severus had always loved ancient languages, words that endured through centuries like indestructible spells.

That passion led him to Edward Cavanaugh’s gallery. The old scholar, a lover of manuscripts, instantly recognized his assistant’s talent. Severus threw himself into the work with the dedication of a craftsman. Restoring, translating, preserving — a new mission, gentler, yet just as vital.

Every day, he crossed the gallery’s threshold, breathed in the scent of old paper, lost himself among cracked bindings. Clients found him cold, but brilliant. He sought nothing more than to become a shadow among books.

At home, he returned to Eileen, his aging mother. Their relationship had never been tender, but a quiet complicity bloomed through shared silences, evening tea, and the occasional fragmented memory.

When Cavanaugh died, the gallery was left to Severus. Prince & Co. — Rare Books, Prints, Manuscripts. The golden sign became his kingdom. Its reputation grew swiftly. Severus withdrew deeper into it, finding in the routine a tepid kind of peace. Not happiness, but absence of pain.

•●•

And so, Hermione and Severus lived parallel lives. She, a brilliant but solitary historian, restorer of forgotten civilizations. He, a learned gallery owner, haunted by ghosts yet soothed by his manuscripts. Two exiles, two guardians of memory.

An invisible thread, woven of shadows and silences, linked their steps. At times their paths crossed without them knowing. Hermione would pass through Soho, unaware of the gilded window of Prince & Co. Behind that very glass, Severus might be shelving a volume, indifferent to the lone young woman lost in the crowd.

Their lives could have gone on like this — parallel, never touching. But life, at times, bends lines into unexpected curves.

Chapter Text

September 25, 2005 – London, 6:37 p.m.

The September rain fell in steady filaments, a gray lace stitching rooftops to pavements. Soho breathed a blend of gasoline, wet leather, and frying oil; shop windows cast back milky gleams, distorting the hurried silhouettes. Hermione’s umbrella, turned inside out by a gust, snapped like a torn sail. Drops beaded along her neck, slid beneath the collar of her coat. She crossed the street in haste, barely avoiding a black cab that braked too late, and her eyes caught, on the dark façade of a shop, a sign in sober golden letters: Prince & Co. – Gallery of Art and Rare Bookbinding.

She hesitated, hand on the latch. The smell of rain and metal clung to her gloves. A breath, an impulse—she pressed.

The discreet chime of the bell rang out, clear as a drop of glass. Inside, the air held the warmth of a room where the light had been muffled. Cream lampshades, dark wood, muted reflections on low display cases: the bindery and the gallery seemed to merge into a single murmur. The floor, old polished maple, creaked beneath her soles. A scent of beeswax, animal glue, warmed leather lingered—and, in the background, that dry powder, like dust from ancient libraries.

Hermione folded her umbrella, shaking the fabric slightly. The modest gesture still resounded as an intrusion. Her breath slowed. She stepped forward, her eyes tracing the embossed spines, gilt edges, hinges restored with an almost loving precision. A finely engraved ex-libris caught the light; a portfolio of prints on laid paper revealed the copper’s bite in the etched lines.

That was when she felt the gaze.

Behind the counter, a man raised his head.

She froze. Time contracted, then flowed again, but at a new, slower pace, as if the room had shifted angle. Black hair, shorter, slicked back; sharp cheekbones, a thin mouth, a face carved more by pain than age. And above all, those eyes, dark, intent, where the light barely settled as a thin film: eyes she knew far too well.

The name slipped out before she had chosen to speak:

— “Professor Snape…”

A barely perceptible tightening, a suspended breath. He straightened—not abruptly, but with the clarity of a blade.

— “I prefer Prince, now.”

Heat rushed to her cheeks. She swallowed.

— “You… you’re alive,” she whispered, realizing the absurdity of the words the instant she heard them.

An ironic glint flickered in his eyes.

— “Evidently.”

Hermione’s trembling smile died quickly.

— “I didn’t expect… to find you here.”

He inclined his head, a slight gesture that meant both consent and closure.

— “No one did.”

Silence fell, taut but not hostile. Questions crowded in—his name, the shop, London—but she chose none. She turned her gaze to the display cases.

— “It’s beautiful,” she said simply.

— “It’s… sufficient,” he replied. The short word left in the air a shade more weary than disdainful.

She understood she was not at home here, that a sanctuary defends itself first by its tacit rules. Her heart hammered, as if it had to make up for years. She forced herself to step back, to nod her thanks, to leave before another word broke the fragile balance. Outside, the rain had lessened, but dampness still clung to her skin. Hermione pulled up her collar and walked away briskly, her mind buzzing—like a hive after impact.

•●•

The smell of rubber and industrial cleaner filled the gym. The neon lights filtered a bluish glow; music pulsed at a steady, insistent volume, mingling with the click of pedals and ragged breaths. It all formed a soundscape where thought could drown. Hermione, fixed on a spinning bike, turned the resistance up a quarter turn with each climb. Her thighs burned; sweat streamed in clear rivulets into the hollow of her collarbones.

She fixed her eyes on a spot on the wall, where a mirror had been removed, leaving a paler rectangle like a scar in the paint. Her mind, though, returned to the chime of the bell, the grain of the bindings, the exact color of those eyes. Why the trembling? Why the knot in her stomach, the erratic beating? He was only a former professor, a harsh, lucid, authoritative man. And yet she had seen, behind the distance, something else: a solitude that resembled her own, polished by years until it was almost elegant.

She raised the resistance again. The dials flashed numbers she didn’t try to retain. The body moved forward, a simple, obedient machine; the mind, though, began once more to argue, to name, to classify—as if ordering the world back into categories restored a form of air.

When the session ended, she sat motionless a few seconds, head bowed, breath searching its cadence. Her towel smelled of clean salt from the sweat. She felt suddenly calm. Or empty. Often, it was the same thing.

•●•

Across town, he switched off the lamps one by one. Each shade went dark like an eye consenting to sleep. The display cases regained their morning transparency, dust resettling without shame on the book edges. His movements were measured to the millimeter: realign a quarto, drape cotton over an engraving, check a drawer’s lock. It should have soothed. It did not.

Hermione Granger, there, in his light. Blood had thudded in his temples when she said “Professor”—and what he felt was not pride, but that old dull ache: the reminder of a role, a name, a stage he had never chosen to enter.

He put on his coat, switched off the space heater near the counter, took the black umbrella that served as his uniform under open skies. Outside, Soho still pulsed: muffled laughter, music leaking from doors, taxis idling like patient beasts. He walked without direction, the rain finishing its polish of the cobblestones into illusion.

She should not have entered, he told himself. And yet, too late to truly wish it undone.

•●•

The Chinese restaurant, nearly empty, glowed with the amber light of places practiced in patience. Red lanterns floated docile beneath the ceiling; the walls bore black characters on cream paper, slightly crinkled by damp. The smell of ginger, Sichuan pepper, and jasmine tea wrapped the varnished tables in a perfumed halo.

Hermione stepped in to escape the returning rain. She thought it would be a quick shelter—yet at the back of the room, she already saw the dark figure, seated, his coat draped on the chair. Chance had turned into insistence.

She set her hands on the table, fingers interlaced, knuckles still cold from outside. Severus, coat on the chair back, sat with that economy of gesture bordering on refusal of the unnecessary—old discipline, old language.

— “I didn’t think I’d see you again,” she said at last, her low voice free of seduction.

— “Nor I,” he replied. “London has a sense of irony.”

She smiled faintly. — “Or perhaps there are forces beyond geography.”

He lifted his eyes, sharp, almost amused. — “I doubt destiny arranges meetings in Chinese restaurants that close at ten.”

— “You’ve always known how to strip the romantic to the bone,” Hermione said, shaking her head.

— “You no longer live… at all in the other world?” he asked, without naming it.

— “No.” She drew in a breath. “It was a choice. I needed a life where scars didn’t decide everything.”

— “And you think this one is exempt?”

— “No,” she admitted. “But here, scars don’t shine. They stay under clothing.”

He gave that half-smile that never reached his cheekbones but smoothed the harsh line at his mouth. The waiter set down steaming dumplings; the mist rose like soft smoke. Hermione gripped her chopsticks too tightly, dropped a dumpling, caught it with her lips. Severus watched, and when his mockery came, it was light.

— “I’ve known you to be more precise with sharp instruments, Miss Granger.”

— “And I’ve known you less indulgent with mistakes,” she shot back, eyes bright.

A brief, restrained laugh escaped him. The gestures turned natural: tea poured soundlessly, soy sauce adjusted, a minute’s focus brought back to the simple pleasure of warmth.

— “Why… that name?” she asked at last. “Prince.”

He turned the cup between his long fingers, as if testing the porcelain. — “Because it’s the only one untainted. The only one I can carry without it being thrown back at me.”

She lowered her eyes to the tablecloth, aware she’d received more than an answer: a cornerstone. — “People… those who knew you… they think you dead.”

— “And isn’t that preferable?” His eyes flashed hard. “In their stories, I remain useful. Dead, I’m simple. Alive, I’m a problem.”

— “Alive, you’re truth,” she said softly. “And sometimes that’s the only path to peace.”

The word, spoken without emphasis, seemed to irk and move him at once. — “Peace is a luxury for those who write history.”

— “Or for those who stop hiding from it,” she whispered.

They ate in silence for a time. Chopsticks clicked against porcelain, like tiny bells. On the wall, a clock ticked an hour that mattered only to the waiter. When the question came, it was his:

— “You’ve changed.”

— “Seven years usually do.”

— “And yet you’ve kept…” He searched. “The spark.”

— “Annoying?”

He tilted his head. — “Necessary.”

She took the blow gently. It wasn’t a compliment—not exactly—but it was recognition. She dared:

— “And you?”

— “Nothing essential,” he said. “I remain the man you hated.”

— “I don’t hate you.” The truth of it startled her. “I think… I understand you better.”

The waiter approached, apologized with the weary politeness of nightly routine: the restaurant was closing. They exchanged a look, then—for the first time—a brief, complicit laugh, almost absurd. The bubble had lasted long enough.

•●•

Outside, the rain had become memory. The cobblestones held a docile sheen, neon lights carving red and green rectangles into puddles. A trace of tea and spice still clung to their clothes. Hermione pulled her coat tighter; Severus raised his scarf. They walked at the same pace without agreeing to, their silhouettes fitting the street corners.

— “You live in Soho?” she asked.

— “Nearby. London’s useful that way: you can be seen without being watched.”

— “You’re not a ghost,” she said.

— “To your world, I am. To myself, sometimes.”

They walked. The rumble of a bus, a voice fading, the glow of a window upstairs, warm rectangle of light. Hermione thought of the strange familiarity she felt with this man—not that of a friend, nor an old professor, but something else: the recognition of a solitude with the same scent.

In front of Hermione’s building, the russet brick glowed lighter under the lamp. She stopped; so did he. — “Thank you for walking me home,” she said.

— “I try not to leave…” He paused, searching. “Things unfinished.”

— “Unfinished?”

— “You came in. You left too quickly. It needed an ending that wasn’t a flight into the rain.”

Her smile came unbidden. — “So this dinner was an ending?”

— “A provisional one.”

Her heartbeat quickened slightly, like a measure accentuated. — “We could… meet again,” she offered steadily. “To talk about art. Or something else.”

He inclined his head. The gesture held no promise, but more than politeness. — “Perhaps.”

She set a hand on the railing, climbed one step, turned back. — “Good night, Severus.”

The name, on her lips, was a bridge laid cautiously. He hesitated—then yielded: — “Good night, Hermione.”

The sound of her own name, deep in his voice, sent a shiver along her arm. She went inside. The door closed, muffling the noise. She stood motionless a moment in the silent hall, her forehead against the cold wood, listening to her breath find its rhythm again.

•●•

He walked on unhurriedly. The air was sharp, clean after rain. He thought of the name she’d spoken, the gaze she hadn’t lowered, the silences that sometimes said more than words. The wet pavement reflected his silhouette like cursive script: for a few steps, he felt his life no longer read right to left.

Perhaps—he thought—he was no longer entirely a ghost. Not yet a living man, no. But something beginning to take shape again in the light. As if an invisible thread, stretched from another solitude, had just vibrated once more.

He raised his collar, brushed the line of keys in his pocket. Ahead, the night extended its sentence. He decided not to end it too quickly.

Chapter Text

The next morning, Hermione was slow to surface. The clock already showed past nine—a luxury she hadn’t allowed herself in months. She sat for a moment on the edge of the bed, bare feet against the cold floorboards, watching the gray light slide along the curtains like silent rain. A stubborn smile lingered on her lips. Fragments of the dinner returned to her: the scent of sesame oil, the warmth of jasmine tea, that rare, unexpected laugh torn from Severus, and the way he had said “Hermione”, with a gravity that was almost gentle.

She slipped into a cardigan. Set the kettle boiling. The scent of Earl Grey filled the narrow kitchen. Her cup grew cold, forgotten by the toaster. Her eyes skimmed over her emails without absorbing a word; her mind kept circling back to the gallery, to that first glance, to the sensation of something familiar and yet entirely new. “Ridiculous,” she told herself. “It was only dinner.”

The vibration of her phone made her start. A brief message appeared:

> Coffee at eleven, in front of the gallery? — C.

Her fingers trembled only slightly as she typed her reply, short and clear:

> Gladly.

Then she sat motionless for a moment, staring at the black screen, acutely aware of how suddenly her heartbeat had quickened.

She took longer than usual to get dressed: a warm hazelnut sweater tucked into a flowing dark-patterned midi skirt, opaque tights and black lace-up boots that elongated her silhouette. Over it, she slipped on a long camel coat, its structured cut lending her an effortless elegance. She chose a small black bag, simple and discreet, tamed her hair with care, refreshed her light makeup, and returned twice to the mirror to adjust some invisible detail. The discreet coquetry felt both foreign and familiar, like a forgotten habit resurfacing.

•●•

Severus, meanwhile, had watched the night unfold without sleep. Hermione returned to him, unbidden, insistent: her candor, her unflinching gaze, the unassuming thrust of her compassion. “Madness,” he had repeated to himself. Yet at dawn, he had yielded to an impulse he hardly recognized and sent that message. When she accepted, a brief but violent relief had rushed through his chest—immediately denied, immediately filed away.

At exactly eleven, he was waiting outside the gallery, dark silhouette in long coat and gray scarf. When he saw her turn the corner, steady stride, camel coat sculpting her figure, he felt a brief vertigo. She was no longer the student he had known, but a woman whose elegance owed as much to restraint as to precision. He caught his gaze lingering on the flow of her skirt, on the quiet firmness of her bearing. His hand tightened on the edge of his scarf—a futile reflex to contain the surge rising in him. And, for an instant, he wished she didn’t have that force of presence: it made his walls of distance more fragile than he wanted.

As she drew near, a breath of her perfume—discreet, mingling floral notes with warm wood—washed over him. His breath caught briefly, and his body betrayed him with the smallest tremor he could not fully suppress.

— “Good morning,” she said, smiling without restraint.

— “Good morning,” he replied, his tone softer than intended.

He nodded down the street with customary sobriety.

— “Come. There’s a decent place nearby.”

•●•

The café’s storefront was blue, weathered by rain and time. Inside, the scent of freshly ground coffee enveloped the patrons; voices wove a warm murmur, punctuated by the clink of porcelain. The crowded tables demanded unusual closeness.

Seated across from each other, they ordered. Hermione chose a cappuccino with a foamy design; Severus, black tea, unsweetened.

— “So you’re not a coffee drinker?” she asked, stirring her spoon.

— “No. Too abrasive,” he answered bluntly.

— “Abrasive isn’t the first word I’d choose for you,” she teased, one eyebrow raised.

A faint curve touched his lips.

— “You’ve clearly never suffered through my thesis comments.”

Hermione burst into laughter—brief, bright, enough to turn two heads. She shook her head.

— “You’re… surprising.”

He didn’t reply at once. Silence stretched, delicate, just long enough for them both to notice the line they had crossed. Hermione lowered her eyes to her cup, almost embarrassed, then raised them again.

— “Not last night,” she said softly.

He held her gaze, unsettled by the simplicity of the words. To shift the angle, he spoke of his current reading: a sixteenth-century Latin manuscript recently acquired, margins scribbled by a nervous hand, ink browned, initials rubricated. Hermione’s questions came quick—context, provenance, binding, watermarks—and she jotted notes in the small notebook she always carried. He found himself detailing, rambling into textures, forgetting the reserve that usually shielded him.

She in turn spoke of a restoration project: capricious pigments, verdigris biting at the varnish, the patience of coaxing back the layers, and that instant when light breaks through a canvas again. He listened as one follows a guiding thread in the dark; her voice became the anchor of a world he had chosen to observe from a distance.

•●•

When they left the café, the rain had stopped. London opened under a pale sky; the pavements gleamed with a clean sheen. Without deciding, they fell into step, walking side by side.

Their wandering brought them to a covered market. Stalls overflowed with exotic fruit, spices in colorful cones, bunches of coriander scenting the damp air. Hermione paused at a stack of worn bindings. She picked one up, stroked the frayed edge with her thumb; ancient dust left her fingertips gray.

— “Poorly kept,” Severus observed, neutral. “Cracked leather, weakened cords, fading ink.”

— “Incorrigible,” she sighed with a smile. “Let me dream over an old book without immediate autopsy.”

He inclined his head, the shadow of amusement on his lips.

— “Illusion is part of value,” he conceded.

— “Exactly. See? You’re learning.”

She said it as if brushing a tender truth; he turned his eyes away to mask the softened curve at his mouth.

•●•

Farther on, a small neighborhood bookshop offered its scent of paper and dust warmed by old radiators. The tilted shelves seemed to stand more by habit than design. Hermione wandered from spine to spine, opening, closing, sometimes inhaling a page, as though each book had its own temperature. Severus watched in silence, fascinated by her constancy: passion intact, unfeigned, not seeking witness.

— “You’ll never change,” he murmured, too low for it to be a declaration.

— “I’ll take it,” she replied without looking up. “It’s one of the few compliments that never go out of style.”

They left each with a book chosen “for fun.” The cold nipped at them with the first gust, driving them into a second café. Hermione ordered a thick hot chocolate that left a foam moustache—wiped away with a laugh; Severus, another tea. Conversation slipped easily: museums, workshops, flat-back versus rounded spines, films they could barely tolerate, silences they cherished.

An hour, then two. Outside, the city shifted from one shade of gray to another.

•●•

Hermione returned home at dusk. In the living room, her mother was knitting, needles clicking like a small clock.

— “You seem… different,” Monica said, looking up.

Hermione felt her cheeks flush at once. — “I spent the day out,” she answered, neutral.

— “With someone?” her mother asked, not pressing, her half-hidden smile betraying her. “You haven’t had that look in a long time.”

Hermione hesitated. The magical world was still a delicate boundary between them. She chose the most accurate generality.

— “A colleague.”

The word, if not quite true, was not entirely false: one can be colleagues in memory.

Monica studied her a moment longer—just enough to say I see—before returning to her knitting. Hermione hung up her coat, still catching on her clothes a trace of tea and spices, her heart racing again for no apparent reason.

•●•

Severus, meanwhile, pushed open his door with arms weighted by a bag ridiculous for its contents: a book bought at the market, of no particular value save for the shared gesture. Eileen Prince, seated by the window, watched the street as one reads a novel whose ending never comes.

— “You’re late,” she noted.

— “Business,” he replied automatically.

Her eyes narrowed, more amused than suspicious. — “You look less grim. That worries me.”

— “You imagine things,” he cut off, curt.

Yet when he placed the book on the nightstand, he recalled the tactile moment: Hermione’s hand on leather, laughter muffled in the shadow of a shelf, the light touching her temple.

— “Is that new?” Eileen asked, pointing to the book.

— “Unimportant,” he said. Then, after a pause:

— “But… pleasant.”

His mother raised an eyebrow—a rare celestial favor—and asked no more.

•●•

That night, sleep eluded them both across the city. Hermione, lying on her back, watched the halo of headlights snake across her ceiling. She hadn’t felt such simplicity in a long time—not elation, but clarity: to talk, to walk, to laugh, without guarding herself from within.

Severus lay still, counting the intervals between the familiar noises of his building: a footstep, a door, a faucet, the silence. He told himself he must not get attached, that his life held because it had shrunk to essentials. And yet Hermione’s voice returned, and with it the dangerous thought that some presences do not distract: they sharpen.

Both, separated by only a few streets and an obstinate past, finally drifted into sleep with the same thought, concise and bare: they wanted to see each other again. Not by chance. Not by courtesy. But by a clear, deliberate desire to begin once more.

Chapter Text

October had begun, draping London in a lower light, almost golden at the end of the afternoon, and a damp chill that crept into sleeves. The days slipped by with a strange lightness for Hermione. She caught herself humming while making tea, smiling as she crossed streets rustling with fallen leaves, walking with a quicker step as if the air had suddenly become easier to breathe. Her colleagues, intrigued, remarked on her good mood. She only shrugged, claiming satisfaction with her work. But within herself, she knew it wasn’t just that. Her thoughts kept returning to that hushed gallery in Soho—and to the dark man who, against all expectation, had cracked open a door to her present.

•●•

The following Thursday morning, as she came back from the library, Hermione found her mother settled in the living room. Monica’s cheeks were flushed with an unusual glow; her knitting needles rested on her lap, and her eyes sparkled like those of a teenager full of secrets.

— “Hermione, I had the most delightful encounter!” she exclaimed as soon as she saw her. “At my pottery class.”

Hermione set down her bag, intrigued.

— “Oh? Really?”

— “Yes, a distinguished woman, very kind. Her name is Eileen. We talked a lot… she has a son,” Monica added with a knowing smile. “A remarkable son, according to her. She even showed me a photo… a very handsome man.”

Hermione gave a small smile.

— “Really?”

— “Yes! And guess what—he runs an art gallery. What a coincidence, isn’t it?”

Hermione only shrugged, amused.

— “The world is small sometimes.”

Monica went on, delighted with her new friendship. Hermione listened absently, paying little real attention.

•●•

The next day, Hermione decided to change something. She went to the hairdresser and asked for a shorter, more modern cut. Her curls now fell in a soft, flowing frame around her face. Passing a shop window afterwards, she caught her reflection: the image of a new woman, ready to breathe differently.

That evening, she attended her yoga class. The room glowed in amber light, the air scented with lavender and polished wood. With each posture, she felt an old weight slip from her shoulders. Her body slowly regained a forgotten suppleness, as though it too was relearning how to live in the present.

•●•

Severus, meanwhile, was consumed by busy days. The gallery was in full swing: catalogues to draft, sales to close, demanding clients to reassure. His two young assistants hurried from storeroom to counter, arms laden with volumes. He oversaw each detail with his usual cold precision. But sometimes, between signatures, his thoughts wandered. A brown curl tucked behind her ear, her bright laugh at a market stall, or that neat inscription penned in her fine hand.

One evening, coming home, he found his mother seated in her armchair, a rare smile on her lips.

— “I met a delightful woman,” she said. “A very kind widow. She spoke of her daughter… very pretty, she says.”

Severus raised an eyebrow.

— “A daughter?”

— “Yes, passionate about art, I believe.”

He frowned slightly, not pursuing the matter further. And yet, something in his mother’s tone—or perhaps the description—stirred a familiar impression he could not place. Like a distant echo one senses but cannot grasp.

— “You should meet her,” Eileen added. “It’s not so common to find people who are both cultured and simple.”

He only nodded, ending the conversation. Later, in his study, the odd impression lingered, faint but nagging. Never suspecting how fate was already tightening its nets.

•●•

A few days later, on a Saturday morning, they met again at Borough Market. The halls bustled with voices, hawkers’ cries, scents of spices and cheese. Stalls overflowed with vivid fruit: opened pomegranates, plump grapes, blood oranges dripping juice onto Hermione’s fingers.

He noticed first her hair: shorter, tamed, framing her face with an elegance that bore nothing of the schoolgirl. That simple change deepened the distance between the insufferable know-it-all he had once endured and the young woman walking now at his side. To his surprise, he felt an unexpected pull—a blend of strangeness and recognition.

— “They’re delicious,” she said, offering him a slice.

He tasted it and remarked only:

— “Too sweet.”

She burst out laughing.

— “You’re impossible. Even oranges can’t please you!”

— “I’ve never had the reputation of being indulgent.”

— “Nor of having a sense of humor, and yet…”

Their eyes met for an instant, longer than necessary.

They wandered on, stopping at a stall of old books. Hermione drew out a 19th-century poetry collection, its binding worn but elegant.

— “This one is beautiful,” she said, stroking the weathered leather.

— “Poorly kept,” he observed. “Weak stitching, corners overstrained.”

— “You always find a flaw,” she replied playfully, slipping the book into his hands. “So let me buy it for you.”

— “That isn’t necessary,” he said curtly.

— “I didn’t ask if it was necessary. I want to.”

He froze, a retort half-formed and left unsaid. To receive without condition, without debt implied, was unfamiliar ground. Instinct urged him to refuse, but the steady light in her eyes stopped him. Awkwardly, defensively, he yielded, closing the book against himself as though to shield it.

That evening, alone in his study, he opened the volume. On the first page, in her neat, firm hand, he read:

> To remind you that some beauties withstand time. — H.

The disturbance returned, sharper. His fingers lingered on the letters as if they burned, torn between holding them close and shielding himself.

•●•

That afternoon, they sat together in a small neighborhood café—velvet benches worn thin, sepia photos on the walls, faint piano music. The lingering scent of roasted coffee enveloped the room.

Hermione cupped her hands around her steaming mug.

— “I don’t think I’ve laughed like I did this morning in a long time.”

— “Then I suppose I have the merit of being… irritating,” he replied with feigned neutrality.

She shook her head, smiling.

— “You’re much more than that, Severus.”

He lowered his gaze to his tea, unsettled by the disarming simplicity of the phrase. It was no flattery, no trap: simply a statement, and it struck deeper than any reproach. For a moment, he felt caught off guard, as though his armor had let slip an invisible arrow.

They talked on—of their mothers, their habits, their likes and dislikes. Unknowingly, they were already weaving a quiet thread between their lives.

•●•

That evening, Hermione found Monica in the living room. Her mother looked up, face glowing with a mischievous smile.

— “You look happy, darling.”

Hermione felt heat rise in her cheeks.

— “I had a lovely day, that’s all.”

— “With your colleague?” Monica teased.

Hermione only gave an enigmatic smile, rewarded by her mother’s knowing laugh.

At the Prince home, Eileen greeted her son with equal curiosity.

— “You were gone a long time today. With someone?”

He held her gaze, then looked away.

— “Perhaps.”

A faint smile touched Eileen’s lips.

— “Then I’m glad you’re not always alone.”

He didn’t answer. But for the first time, he felt no need to.

•●•

That night, Hermione lay in bed, notebook pressed against her. Her fingers traced the cover’s grain as though searching for an answer. Where could this lead?

Elsewhere, Severus sat in his armchair, rereading verses from the collection. The words, faded by time, now shone anew under his eyes. His lips curved in the faintest smile—immediately checked.

They both knew they were stepping onto uncertain ground. Yet for the first time in years, that ground felt not only possible, but desirable.

And in the silence of their distant rooms, the same impression stirred within them—subtle, undeniable: as though an invisible thread had begun to weave their solitudes together.

Chapter Text

The rain had withdrawn like a curtain, leaving the pavements with a fresh sheen where neon lights scattered in streaks of pink and green. October’s air carried that damp bite that slipped beneath coats. Hermione walked with an easy stride, collar raised, still lingering in the morning’s meeting… and in the message she had received at noon:

“6 p.m. in front of Berwick Street Bookshop? – C.”

She had answered “Yes” too quickly, set the phone down, hesitated for a second—then caught herself smiling at her own reflection in the rain-streaked window of a passing bus.

•●•

At the museum, the morning had flown by. In the archives, the slanted light from skylights carved pale rectangles. It smelled of starch glue, leather, the warm dust of lamps. Paper crackled faintly under gloved fingers. Two assistants took notes as Hermione dictated, precise and calm:

— “Stabilize the humidity, protect the margins, photograph before the slightest opening of the binding…”

Every gesture carried the reassuring clarity of a mastered ritual; and yet, beneath the surface, a new lightness coursed through her, like transparency.

Her phone vibrated. Monica’s cheerful voice filled the archive:

— “Darling! Do you remember Eileen, my friend from pottery class? We’re organizing a small dinner… next Saturday. She’s bringing her son. I’m sure you’ll get along wonderfully: cultured, elegant… and he runs a gallery!”

Hermione rolled her eyes toward the ceiling, amused weariness flickering across her face.

— “Saturday?” she repeated, buying herself a second.

— “Yes! And just imagine—he loves lemon tart.”

Hermione bit her lip to keep from laughing. Her mother’s imagination always overflowed when it came to “finding her someone.” She only replied:

— “All right, Mum. We’ll talk tonight. Kisses.”

She set the phone down. The irritation faded quickly, replaced by a curiosity she dared not name. Two paths opened: refuse, or let it happen. This time, she chose to let herself be surprised.

•●•

In front of the Berwick Street bookshop, Severus waited, leaning against the window. The glass reflected him in shades of slate. When Hermione appeared at the corner, hair still damp, he released his shoulder in the faintest motion that, for him, equaled a smile.

— “Good evening, Hermione.”

— “Good evening, Severus.”

She had spoken his name as one restores a truth to its place.

The bookshop welcomed them into a hushed silence broken only by the occasional turn of a page or the sigh of a hinge. Hermione drew a slim volume of poetry, read a few verses aloud; her voice blended with the paper’s grain. He replied with an anecdote about a faulty Latin translation, lips brushing a rare smile. They continued, precise and playful, like two musicians improvising on a familiar theme.

Outside, they passed a flower market: anemones fluttered like tiny flags, the green scent of cut eucalyptus rising in fresh waves. Somewhere, a saxophone stretched a slow melody into gentle nostalgia.

On a still-damp bench, clutching a cup of hot tea, Hermione sighed with amusement:

— “My mother is incorrigible. She’s determined to set me up with the first man she finds. This Saturday, she’s organizing a dinner… and this time, through her new friend.”

He raised an eyebrow. — “Oh?”

— “Yes. A certain Eileen. Very distinguished, very sweet, apparently. And of course she has a son, supposedly perfect: cultured, elegant, handsome… at least according to them.”

Severus froze a moment, then repeated softly:

— “Eileen.”

Hermione rolled her eyes, sure he was mocking her complaints. — “See? Even you think it’s ridiculous.”

He hesitated, then said, measured:

— “Strange… my mother mentioned a Monica recently. A very kind widow. With a daughter… very pretty, she said.”

Hermione’s eyes widened before she burst into laughter—clear, too loud for the quiet market. She leaned toward him, still laughing:

— “Wait… Monica is my mother!”

She shook her head, amused at her own slowness to see the connection.

— “Oh, Merlin… They’re unbelievable! They planned it all without realizing that…”

Severus gave an ironic breath, half-exasperated, half-amused. — “Or perhaps they knew very well.”

Hermione lifted her cup like a toast to their complicity. — “Then, for fun, we tell them nothing.”

— “Nothing at all,” he confirmed, with gravity that barely concealed the amused curve of his mouth.

They stayed a moment in silence, the smile suspended between them, like two conspirators in a dinner where chance had turned into perfect comedy.

•●•

The week unfolded in sharp scenes.

At the museum, Hermione received a private donation: three early 20th-century travel journals, gilded leather, corners rounded by hands, paper scented of salt and dust.

— “Memory is tended,” she told the donors. “We respect the fibers, the inks, the light.”

Later, a text from Severus:

“The Greek manuscript breathes again. I suspect a hidden acrostic. – C.”

She replied with a photo of sky framed between two skylights:

“The city has its own acrostics.”

Fragments: an invisible railing to hold on to one another.

In the evenings, Monica spread lists across the table, pencil tucked behind her ear.

— “No garlic, Eileen says her son can’t digest it. Not too much salt. Do you think sea bream with fennel will do?”

— “Perfect,” Hermione answered. “I’ll bring the wine.”

In the warm lavender air of a yoga studio on a rainy evening, Hermione’s body yielded to rest. The floor warm beneath her feet, the breath deepening, she thought: perhaps recognizing oneself is the greatest change of all.

At the gallery, Severus juggled with precision. Lydia—eyes lighting at the word incunable—and Amir—steady hands, patient gaze—took turns at his desk.

— “Mr. Prince, the annotated margin…”

— “A scribble,” he dismissed, then, reconsidering, lifted the magnifying glass. “No. A second hand. A devoted owner correcting the author. Leave the folio as it is.”

The tiny inclination of his head made Lydia glow for the rest of the day.

In the kitchen, Eileen moved with a shawl around her shoulders.

— “Monica is bringing lemon tart. Do you think we can have two?”

— “The law does not forbid dessert duplication,” he answered.

— “You’re almost charming today.”

He paused, then murmured low:

— “So am I, Mother.”

•●•

Saturday arrived under a pearly sky, almost milky.

At Monica’s, the table was simple: white plates with fine rims, a midnight-blue runner, pale ranunculus and eucalyptus in a low vase; the clean scent of the Chablis Hermione opened promised well—wet stone, citrus zest.

— “You look lovely,” Monica said, adjusting a strand of hair. “There’s a little fire in your eyes.”

— “It’s the cooking,” Hermione laughed, grateful for the joke that eased the tension.

Elsewhere, Eileen checked the cake box tied with a golden ribbon.

— “Monica has a real sense of presentation.”

She stopped behind her son.

— “You look very well, Severus.”

— “Thank you, Mother.”

In the taxi, she spoke of pottery, reluctant vases, a laughing instructor, and of Monica, whose kindness seemed to hold the class together. Severus watched the city slide by: red lights on wet bricks, steam from grates, shop windows glinting. He was going to a dinner, through comedy’s path. He accepted the comedy.

The doorbell rang. Hermione exchanged a glance with her mother and went to open.

— “Darling!” Monica exclaimed, kissing Eileen. “And this is… my son.”

Severus crossed the threshold with a quarter-step hesitation only Hermione noticed. For him, every gaze was a trial: Monica’s curiosity, Eileen’s pride—so many mirrors in which he feared to see himself distorted. His throat tightened, but he advanced, knowing retreat would mean fleeing what he was no longer willing to flee.

— “Good evening,” she said, voice both calm and smiling.

— “Good evening,” he replied, his gaze softening, unguarded.

— “Come in, come in!” Monica urged. “Put your coats here. Eileen, your tart is magnificent!”

— “Monica, the true artist, baked it,” Eileen blushed. “I only admired.”

The first minutes passed in polite exchanges: the apartment, the weather, pottery, the gallery. But beneath the surface, Hermione and Severus traded glances like quiet asides. Quick, restrained smiles, hovering between them like an invisible thread.

At the table, the sea bream was a success—crisp skin, tender fennel, preserved lemon.

— “Delicious,” Eileen exclaimed.

Severus ate with steady appetite—which, from him, was high praise.

— “Do you cook often?” he asked Monica.

— “Less than I used to, but I’m getting back into it,” she said. “Hermione helps… more and more.”

Hermione raised her eyes toward him. That more and more resonated like a hidden message, halfway between confession and admission. He held her gaze, answering silently: he was no longer the only one carrying that more. Monica, watching, believed she saw proof her plan was working.

The conversation drifted to art.

— “My son runs an antiquarian gallery,” Eileen said proudly.

— “Hermione restores manuscripts,” Monica replied. “She, too, lives among treasures.”

A brief silence, smooth as porcelain. Severus looked at Hermione. The mothers thought it an exchange of professions; but his voice, low, aimed only at her:

— “We should compare methods of conserving illuminated folios. I think we could learn from each other.”

— “Gladly,” she whispered back, meant only for him.

The mothers exchanged delighted looks, convinced they were witnessing budding professional camaraderie. But beneath the table, in the current of their eyes, ran a more secret language: mute recognition, and their shared secret to stay silent.

Dessert arrived, crowned with bright zest.

— “To lemon tart!” Monica joked. “May it bring us luck.”

— “And to chance, which tastes so good,” added Eileen.

Hermione and Severus exchanged a smile, quickly hidden. Their mothers read in it the spark of attraction.

After coffee, in the living room, Eileen showed pottery photos; they laughed at a vase leaning “like a tired cathedral.” Time no longer pressed, only this room, these four lives crossing without colliding.

Aside, Monica whispered to Eileen, eyes shining:

— “Look at them… smiling like they share a secret.”

Eileen nodded, touched:

— “I think we’ve succeeded.”

Hermione caught their complicit look without guessing the words, hiding her amusement. Severus kept his composure, but his fleeting glance toward her clearly said: the comedy continues.

Time to part. Eileen rose, shoulders betraying age more than her face.

— “Thank you. I haven’t laughed like this in a long time.”

Plans were made for a future outing, perhaps the flower market. Monica slipped a tart box into Severus’s hands.

— “For later.”

— “Thank you,” he said—and it was genuine.

In the hall, Hermione helped Eileen tie her shawl.

— “You’ve made my mother happy,” she murmured.

— “I think she did the same for me,” Eileen replied, pressing her hand briefly.

On the landing, with the door ajar behind her, Hermione joined Severus.

— “That was…”

— “… strangely natural,” he finished.

— “Tomorrow?” she asked softly.

— “The gallery opens at ten. I’ll close at noon.”

— “Flower market?”

— “Flower market.”

He descended the steps with Eileen.

— “Darling?” Monica called. “Help me tidy up?”

— “Coming,” Hermione answered, her heart still racing with this newfound ease.

Tidying lingered on purpose. Monica, wiping a glass:

— “Eileen is remarkable. She seems to have suffered, yet chose to remain kind.”

Another glass:

— “Her son has an elegance… old-fashioned. Like a man who has lived several lives.”

— “He has a way of setting time down,” Hermione said.

Monica fixed her above the plate:

— “You like him, don’t you?”

Hermione set the napkin down, leaned her head against her mother’s shoulder, as she once had.

— “Yes.”

— “Then let things come,” Monica murmured, hand in her daughter’s hair.

•●•

In the taxi, Eileen spoke softly, not to disturb the night’s gentleness:

— “Monica puts people at ease. And her daughter… such sweetness! Like a ray that has learned to pass through clouds.”

Severus watched the city pass: rain-lustred façades, yellow halos, a dog tugging at its lead.

— “Yes. She has learned,” he said.

— “You like her, don’t you?”

He searched for the right words:

— “I like myself better in her presence.”

Eileen held back a tender breath, pressing her son’s hand.

— “Then everything will be well.”

At home, he lifted the lid of the box. A bite of tart: acid that seized, sweet that soothed, crust that crumbled. A tiny laugh escaped him.

— “To the tart,” he murmured, like a toast.

He took up the poetry volume Hermione had given him. A verse: “A gentle light, as though the day remembered itself.”

He switched off the lamp. In the dark, he marveled at waiting for morning with quiet impatience—not a duty, not a penance: a choice that destroyed nothing.

Hermione, lying in bed, replayed the evening scene by scene: the door, the softened gaze, the mothers’ complicity, the effortless ease. She thought of Australia without pain, thought that perhaps love could be lived with, not against. Sleep carried her on that thought.

Sunday promised its brightness. For once, London seemed on their side. And if there was a promise in the air, it resembled less a coincidence than a chosen certainty: the dinner of coincidences had become the dinner of possibilities.

Chapter Text

The day had slipped by, heavy and demanding, but Hermione had kept pace with the stubbornness that had always carried her. In the museum’s climate-controlled storage, the air smelled of starch glue, warm leather, and clean dust. The cold light of the fluorescents flattened the shadows. On a gray felt pad, she slid sheets of seventeenth-century parchment, noting in a fine pencil: northeast corner weakened, increased translucency, browned inks. Her gloves barely rustled; her movements had the crispness of a ritual.

“Let’s stabilize humidity at 50%.” “Understood,” Emma replied, bent over her notebook. “And tell collections: display case B needs a new UV filter.”

She loved this work. But the meetings, the urgent emails, the polite smiles—everything that gnaws away at the poetry of manuscripts—had left a dull tension at the base of her neck. She rolled her shoulders. In the distance, a trolley squealed, a metallic rhythm cutting through the stacks. Hermione closed the conservation box, exhaled, and filed her notes.

•●•

That evening, someone suggested grabbing a drink “to decompress.” She hesitated. The week had been heavy. And yet—needing normality—she let herself be convinced.

The pub, all dark brick, overflowed with warmth: hops and varnished wood, damp wool, toast; the worn leather banquettes clung slightly to coats, the music was too loud, voices collided in the air like clinking glasses.

“To the end of inventory!” Mark cried, lifting his pint. “To the end of inventory,” Hermione echoed with a laugh, ginger ale in hand.

Workshop anecdotes rolled out—small mishaps, small victories. Hermione finally relaxed for real; her laughter, this time, came without effort.

Andrew was there, of course. Tall, too sure of himself, a heavy cologne that lingered in corners. For weeks he had allowed himself equivocal remarks, jokes that hung on too long. Hermione had learned to sidestep.

“We never see you, Hermione,” he purred. “You should go out more.” “I keep a tight schedule,” she answered, polite. “Tomorrow I’ll take you to a gallery. Two invitations.” “No, thank you. I already have… something else.” “Always something else,” he sighed, mock-hurt. “You should learn to unwind.”

She steered the conversation toward Emma, toward Mark. She knew how: ignore without humiliating. But Andrew drifted closer, magnetized. With each joke, his hand brushed the back of her chair; his laughter leaned too near her ear.

“Excuse me,” Hermione said, standing up. “The restroom.”

The corridor was narrow, painted a faded green, the smell of cleaner mingling with spilled beer. A yellowish sconce pressed down the light. She sensed, behind her, a presence slowing. She tensed.

“Andrew, no.” “Come on, Hermione… we both know—” “I said no.”

The lock snapped behind her. The metal vibrated, sharp, like a trap closing. Hermione took a step back, spine flat to the smooth wall, fingers clenched around her bag strap.

“Let me out.” “You’re so serious,” he murmured, mouth twisted. “You need to loosen up.”

He lunged. His arm struck the wall near her head, caging her in a narrow corner. His breath, soaked in alcohol, burned her cheek. His hand seized her wrist hard, crushing it against the partition.

“Stop… Andrew, please.” “Just a kiss,” he whispered, and his mouth smashed roughly onto hers.

Hermione turned her head away, but he pressed on, seeking her throat, planting wet kisses in the hollow of her neck. His free hand grew bolder: it slid over her shoulder, tried to slip inside the opening of her blouse, brushing her collarbone. Hermione struggled, but he pinned her down with a heavy, insistent weight.

“Don’t do this… I don’t want…” Her voice shook, almost broken. “You’ll see, you’ll like it,” he insisted, his hand leaving her blouse to slide down her waist, trying to lift the hem of her skirt. His fingers already hooked there, impatient, while he tightened his grip.

Panic flared, icy, cutting off her breath. Her heart hammered too hard; her legs felt weak. She tried to push at his shoulders, but he crushed her body against his, his heavy, alcohol-laden breath filling all the space.

His lips came back, insatiable—cheek, neck—with an urgency that made her choke. Hermione felt the burn of a hand rising too high, where she refused to be touched.

Then a movement learned in another life resurfaced—sharp, precise. A pivot of the hips, a twist of the shoulder: she freed her arm and drove her elbow back, hard enough to make him stumble half a step with a grunt. Her trembling hand grabbed the handle and turned. The door gave way with a harsh squeal.

The corridor opened—rush of cold air. Hermione bolted, crossed the crowded room too fast, muffled buzzing, startled faces freezing without intervening. No one spoke. London’s cold rain seized her as she pushed through the front door.

Against the brick wall, she caught her breath. Her hands shook so badly she almost dropped her phone. Her wrist already bore the red, painful imprint of his grip; her blouse was rumpled, askew. On her lips, the bitter tang of alcohol and the forced kiss lingered, a burn no rain could wash away.

Severus. Help me. I can’t go home.

She sent it. Then counted her breaths, one after another, the way you climb back to the surface.

•●•

At the gallery, Severus was closing a video call with Hong Kong. Voices compressed by the speaker, lag, numbers on the screen. Lydia was taking notes; Amir was adjusting a chart.

The phone buzzed. The name on the screen split the conversation cleanly in two. He read. His face did not move—but his eyes turned extraordinarily calm.

“Lydia, finish without me.” “Of course, Mr. Prince.”

He took his coat, stepped into the driving rain, hailed a cab. The ride felt absurdly long. He repeated the message to himself, word for word, refusing scenarios. She needs help. We go.

Hermione was waiting, leaning against the dark façade, arms crossed as if to hold her breath in place. Eyes red but dry. When she saw him, her shoulders sank by a millimeter.

Severus came closer and, before he even spoke, his gaze took in the details: the rumpled collar of her blouse, a strand of hair stuck to her cheek, and above all the bright mark circling her wrist, like a fresh burn. His mouth tightened; but he forced himself to silence. This was not the moment for questions.

He simply set his coat over her shoulders. “Come.”

She nodded, clutching the fabric around her. “Not my place, not yours,” she whispered. “I… I don’t want them to know.” “All right.”

His voice was a taut line, but without reproach. “No police. Not tonight.” “All right.”

His eyes rested a moment longer on the reddened wrist she was trying to hide in her sleeve. His hand made an almost imperceptible move—an urge to touch, to check—but he held back. Respect her pace, nothing else.

He didn’t argue. “I know a place.”

In the taxi, the wipers beat an obstinate metronome. The silence wasn’t empty: it was useful. Severus gave a suburban address, voice low. Hermione watched the rain slant across the window. Her phone vibrated—Emma: You left? Are you okay? She didn’t answer yet. Clinging to the idea of a place to exist without being questioned: that was enough, for now.

•●•

The cottage hid behind a trimmed hedge; the night, edged with mist, had the grain of an old photograph. Severus opened up and switched on a lamp. Warm light fell across the polished floor; the air smelled of wood, black tea, and the resin of an old fire.

“Come in.”

Bookshelves covered an entire wall: burnished spines, clothbound notebooks, conservation boxes. An armchair with a dark throw, a low table, white cups. Nothing showy—everything exact, reassuring.

He handed her a glass of water. “Drink.”

She brought it to her lips, gulped too fast, the water almost going down the wrong way. As though trying to drown, all at once, the acid taste still clinging to her mouth. Her fingers shook so much the rim chimed against her teeth. When she set the glass down, her hands were icy, twitching with small nervous jolts.

She sat on the edge of the armchair, knees together, back taut like a drawn cord. Her ragged breathing made her shoulders rise and fall too quickly. Then, suddenly, the tears came—not soft, but jarring, shaking her whole body.

“It’s fine… it’ll be fine,” she tried to convince herself aloud, but her throat closed at once. The words strangled, replaced by sobs that burned her lungs.

Severus approached with measured steps. He brushed her wrist, and the red mark stamped there made his jaw clench. Without a word, he disappeared into the kitchen and returned with an ice pack wrapped in a cloth.

“Here,” he said gently, setting it on her skin.

She whimpered when the cold bit into her flesh, a sound half plaintive, half relieved. Her fingers clung to it like a lifeline.

“It didn’t go any further…” she managed between hiccups. “I got out. But… I was so scared.”

Every word seemed to cost her immense effort. She inhaled, but her breath broke again, bringing a sob that cut off her voice. Her body, still saturated with adrenaline, vibrated with an uncontrollable tremor: her legs tapped a faint rhythm against the floorboards, her teeth chattered as if from a sudden cold.

Severus laid a blanket over her shoulders, gently adjusted the edges around her. “You’re safe here,” he said, low and grave, as if to hammer the sentence into reality.

The voice steadied her rhythm. Her hands, clenched until then, began to loosen. She breathed deeper, gasped again, then slowly found a less ragged cadence. Her muscles, wooden-stiff, started to release: she felt weight return, heavy, to her arms, her thighs, her neck.

A brutal exhaustion struck her, as if the energy that had held her upright had suddenly evaporated. She blinked, eyelids heavy. Her tears still flowed, but less frantically, slower—like rain after a storm.

“Do you want to tell me his name?” Severus asked after a while. She hesitated, searching for words. “Andrew. But not tonight.” “Very well. Tonight you breathe. The rest can wait.”

She nodded weakly, grateful that he demanded nothing more. Then, standing up, she brushed the edge of a duodecimo in pale calfskin with her fingertips. The gesture soothed her, almost a reflex. “Do you live here?” “Sometimes. When the city’s noise becomes useless.” “You can… hear time here,” she murmured. “It makes less of it,” he answered.

She turned to him, more vulnerable than he had ever seen her—and straighter, too. Her eyes were still reddened, but a new resolve clung there. “Stay. Tonight.”

He inclined his head a fraction. “I had no intention of leaving you alone.”

He set the ice back on her wrist and tucked the blanket in. Hermione closed her eyes for a moment. Her heart still raced too fast, but in this inhabited silence she finally felt the surge ebb. The ice’s cold, the fire’s warmth, the steadiness of his voice: all of it helped bring her body back to herself.

She felt she was surviving the shock, minute by minute. The fear hadn’t vanished, but she had found a shore to anchor to.

•●•

The night was broken into pieces. Startled wakings, turnings over, hands clenched in the sheet. Each time she surfaced, Severus’s still presence in the nearby armchair, a low lamp on, reminded her. He asked no questions. He was there, like a lighthouse that docks no one but holds its post.

At dawn, a milky mist rose over the countryside. Hermione surfaced slowly, eyelids heavy as if weighted with sand. Her whole body still bore the imprint of fear: a jaw sore from clenching, numb shoulders, a strange ache along her arms as after a struggle. Her thighs, clenched the night before, had that dull stiffness of muscles held tight too long. But her heart beat slower now—not in bursts, but in deep, almost regular thuds. She took a breath. The air went in—difficult at first, then smoother—and for the first time in hours, it truly reached her lungs.

The kettle sang. “Tea?” “Yes, please.”

He measured the leaves into the stoneware pot, poured the water without a sound, waited, served. His movements had the precision of a silent prayer. She cupped the mug in her still-cold hands; the warmth seeped in circles, traveled up her wrists, made her nape shiver. One sip—the hot liquid thudded in her temples, but instead of overwhelming her, it grounded her. She blinked, and a first full, slow breath imposed itself.

“You should text someone at the museum,” he said softly. “Something tiny. So they don’t worry.” She nodded. She picked up her phone: I’ll be back tomorrow. I’m okay, she wrote to Emma. Then: Thank you for last night. It wasn’t true, but she didn’t want to worry her colleague.

She reread it and felt a muscle in her cheek relax. As if a lock had given way.

“Do you want to walk?” “Yes.”

The damp path opened between quickset hedges. The air smelled of cold earth, moss, crushed leaves. Her legs, stiff, protested at first, but each step drew a little pain out of them. The crackle of twigs beneath her soles set the tempo for reclaiming her body. Hermione slid her hands into her pockets, turned up her collar; a rush of cold air bit her lungs and she was surprised to find not panic there, but clarity.

“You could have forced me to… take action,” she said without looking at him. “I don’t force. I offer options.” “And if I do nothing?” “Then you do nothing today. Tomorrow is still free.”

She nodded, grateful for the way he refused to confiscate her choice.

Farther on, a field opened, skinned with a pale frost. Her still-fragile lungs filled with that white bite, and for the first time since the assault, she felt she was breathing fully. “I hate the idea that he thinks… I’ll keep quiet,” she burst out. “Silence can be a strategy. Not a surrender.” “And you? If I asked you to speak?” “Then I would speak.” “To me?” “To you, yes.”

She stopped and looked at him head-on. Her eyes still carried the night’s fatigue, but also a new clarity—the calm after the storm, fragile yet real. “You’re… more patient than I knew.” “I haven’t changed. I use it differently.”

•●•

The afternoon slid by without a sound. They lunched on scrambled eggs, lightly toasted bread, bitter orange marmalade. Hermione slept an hour—short dream, no images. When she woke, the house breathed low; Severus was annotating a margin in pencil.

“You write ‘temp.’ in the margin?” “For temporize. The illuminator was in a rush: I grant him the time he didn’t take.” “You’re impossible,” she smiled. “Except when it’s useful.”

That evening by the fire, the room became a chamber for breathing. The flames crackled; the warm resin scent rounded the air. Hermione rested her head against the backrest, eyes half-closed. “At school…” she said slowly, “I was strong because I had a plan. Now I don’t.” “You don’t need a plan yet. You need consent.” “Mine?” “Yours. For whatever comes next.”

She watched him a long time. “Thank you for answering. Immediately.” “You wrote help me. I didn’t need another argument.”

A gentle silence settled. A log split. “I’ll talk to Emma,” she said. “And maybe to management. But first I want… to choose my words.” “I can help you write them,” he offered. “You’d do that?” “I’ve corrected obstinate Latinists for twenty years. I can respect form.” “Without stealing my voice?” “Without stealing your voice.” “Then tomorrow we draft an email. Plain. Effective.” “Plain and effective,” he confirmed.

The fear had withdrawn from her hands; she could finally sit inside herself without tipping over.

•●•

The next morning, at the cottage table, Hermione wrote: Incident Friday night at the pub. Inappropriate behavior by a colleague (Andrew). I would like to file an official report—details in person on Monday. Thank you for keeping this confidential. I am safe and have support. H.

She reread it and hit Send. A muscle in her cheek eased.

“There,” she said. “There,” he echoed.

She resumed, softly: “I choose the pace. You offer, but you don’t impose.” “Exactly.”

That sentence sealed the balance: Hermione kept control; Severus held the shoreline.

•●•

They walked as far as the little wooden bridge; the black water reflected the last leaves. Hermione slid her gloved hand along the rail.

“We’re no longer two solitudes brushing past each other,” she breathed. “No. We’re facing forward. Together.” “Together,” she repeated, fixing the word in the crisp air.

On the way back, hunger finally returned. “Do you still have the bitter marmalade?” “Obviously.” “Perfect. It puts the taste back where it belongs.”

He poured the tea, spread the toast, set the plate before her. The world became habitable again in small units: a cup, a plate, a shared silence. Like a binding laid over a fragile seam, they added, together, a fresh headband to the frayed edge of the night.

That evening, by the fire, they exchanged a look that needed no explanations. Fear had left a wake, yes; but it now met a solid shore. They were no longer merely facing each other: at last, they stood side by side.

Chapter Text

Monday morning had that damp sharpness that follows a night of rain. The air stung, filled with the scent of rotting leaves and cold earth — an acrid, almost metallic blend that burned her throat.

Hermione walked along the dark sidewalks, her steps echoing against the stones still slick with moisture. She moved quickly, as if to keep her balance, her shoulder bag clutched tightly against her, fingers gripping the strap as though it were a railing in the dark. Every deliberate movement, every calculated breath, gave her the illusion of control — of not letting herself be swallowed by memory.

Yet each echo of her heels brought back another sound — the narrow corridor of the pub, the lock clicking shut, the breath too close behind her.

She inhaled sharply, almost violently, to push the image away. The smell of coffee drifted from a small kiosk at the corner, mingled with the warmth of fresh bread. She thought of stopping, but didn’t — her stomach was too tight to hold anything but the burn of the cold air.

The museum gates finally rose before her, black and glistening. As she stepped through them, she felt as though she were crossing into another world — one where every movement would be watched, recorded, judged.

The hall, vast and marbled, reflected the pale October light. Too white, too harsh. Every step struck with a clarity that made her feel exposed, seen, observed. She greeted Emma with a brief nod; Emma smiled back, fragilely, her eyes brimming with contained worry.

The others offered fleeting glances — smiles too polite, eyes that turned away too quickly. Nothing was said, but everything was understood. The air felt heavy, taut, like a sheet ready to tear.

Her office awaited her: narrow, impersonal. The neon light flickered above, casting a pallid glow that buzzed like an insect caught in a jar. On the desk lay a folder marked Human Resources. Three printed pages, spare and impersonal:

Your complaint has been received. An internal investigation has been opened. Thank you for your availability for a confidential interview. We guarantee your safety in the workplace.

Hermione read every line twice. The clinical neutrality of administrative language made her nauseous. Safety in the workplace. As though fear, humiliation, the smell of alcohol and sweat, the weight of an arm blocking the door — could be reduced to a standardized phrase. Her hands trembled.

She pulled out her notebook, her refuge, and began to write in fine strokes: odors. Green hallway. Yellow wall light. Exit blocked. Each word, each fragment, was a stitch to keep her mind from unraveling. But that morning, her pen felt unbearably heavy.

Andrew’s empty chair, a few meters away, seemed to occupy all the space in the room. Too present, too threatening. His absence shouted louder than his presence. Hermione looked away immediately, the way one avoids a cliff’s edge.

Emma appeared in the doorway, a steaming mug in her hands.

— “Want some tea?”

— “Yes… thank you.”

She stepped in, closed the door behind her, and placed the mug on the desk. The scent of bergamot rose, soothing. Emma studied her friend’s pale face.

— “Have you been sleeping?”

— “In fragments.”

Emma hesitated, then sat across from her. Her voice softened, almost confidential.

— “You know… you’re not alone. We talked about it. What he did — it’s serious.”

Hermione pressed her lips together. Her hands wrapped around the mug, seeking warmth, but a sharp pain shot through her bruised wrist. Still, she held on, grounding herself in that comforting sting.

— “I’m afraid of what comes next,” she whispered.

— “That’s normal. But you were brave enough to speak. That changes everything.”

Silence fell — dense, broken only by the hum of the neon light. Emma added, lower still:

— “We heard you, Hermione. You did the right thing.”

Hermione lifted her head. In her friend’s gaze, she saw a strength she hadn’t expected. She nodded slowly, barely breathing the word:

— “Thank you.”

•●•

At eleven, she crossed the corridor leading to the interview room. The air smelled of damp paper and cold plastic. The floor creaked beneath her shoes. Her fingers tightened around her bag strap, like a fragile piece of armor.

The room was sterile: beige walls, glass table, blinds drawn. A faint disinfectant odor lingered. Two figures were waiting already — a lawyer with a cold stare and an HR officer with a rehearsed smile. Pens ready, notebooks open. Their professional detachment was both reassuring and brutal.

Hermione sat, hands clasped in her lap.

— “You confirm leaving the pub around ten p.m.?”

— “Yes.”

— “You confirm that Andrew attempted to stop you?”

— “Yes.”

She described the scene. Her voice aimed for precision — clear, detached, almost clinical. Each detail was delivered with scientific exactness: the smell of spilled beer, the smooth wall at her back, the click of the lock, the pressure on her wrist. As though she were dictating a report, not a memory. Beneath that calm precision, her lungs burned.

The HR officer nodded, jotting notes without looking up. The lawyer reformulated her statements in a neutral tone.

— “Thank you. Your testimony is crucial. We’ll summon Andrew next.”

Summon Andrew. The words vibrated like a threat. Hermione saw again his twisted smile, his mouth too close, his hands forcing their way beneath her clothes. A violent shiver ran through her.

Outside, the air struck her like deliverance. She leaned against the museum wall, letting the fine rain sting her face. The cold stone at her back was better than the beige chair in the interview room. She stayed there a few seconds, drinking in the damp air like a gulp of temporary freedom.

•●•

Later, in the office, the news spread quickly: Andrew was to be summoned. A heavy silence fell. Only the sound of pages turning, pencils scratching. Then one colleague said, almost too loudly:

— “It was bound to happen.”

No one answered. Emma simply rested a firm hand on Hermione’s shoulder. That gesture said more than any words could.

•●•

At the gallery, Severus had felt the tension in his shoulders from dawn. Hermione had sent a short message: Interview this morning.

He’d replied with just three words: Stand tall. Then another: I’ll be there tonight.

He’d tried to return to work, but every word he wrote — vellum, incunable, binding — blurred behind the image of Hermione sitting before the lawyers, her hands knotted in her lap.

Lydia, his assistant, eventually noticed his darker mood.

— “Everything all right, Mr. Prince?”

He merely nodded. Too many words would have betrayed him.

At noon, he went for a walk through Soho. The wet cobblestones gleamed under his shoes. Crushed red leaves released a damp, acid smell. A drift of roasted chestnuts carried by the wind reminded him autumn was deepening. The voices of passersby, the honk of a cab, the music of a saxophone on Greek Street — everything felt distant.

She is facing it. I must be the shore.

He repeated the sentence in his mind like an inner vow.

•●•

That evening, Hermione entered the gallery without warning. The small bell chimed softly, almost fragile. Her beige coat was still damp, her hair stuck to her temples. Severus looked up from the manuscript he’d been reading. She stood there a moment, motionless, as if to make sure he was real.

— “Well?” he asked quietly.

— “It’s done. They’ll hear him tomorrow.”

She set down her bag, sat. Her hands still trembled when he handed her a cup of tea. The scent of bergamot rose again, covering the lingering smell of rain. She blew on it, trying to steady her fingers. A fine pain ran through her wrist, but she gripped the cup anyway, anchoring herself in its warmth.

— “I hate that everyone knows,” she murmured.

— “Whether they know or not, they don’t own your story. You’ve taken it back.”

She looked at him, startled. His words struck her like a truth she hadn’t dared form.

— “Taken it back… Yes. That’s it.”

The silence that followed wasn’t empty — it was full of unspoken accord. They sat together in the golden light of the gallery, listening to the quiet creak of wood beneath the beating rain.

•●•

A few days later, management confirmed: Andrew was suspended, pending disciplinary action. The museum’s corridors buzzed with muffled rumors. Glances lingered on Hermione a fraction too long. She held her head high, notebook under her arm. Every note, every annotation, every gesture became an act of defiance. Some whispered. But she knew she had chosen to write her story before anyone else could write it for her.

•●•

At the cottage, the fire crackled. The scent of burning wood filled the room, mingling with that of black tea. Severus opened the poetry book she’d given him. The paper crackled under his fingers. His deep voice read aloud:

> “The voices that rise from the dark

are not weakness,

but calls toward the light.”

Each syllable resonated through the room. Hermione, sitting by the fire, closed her eyes. The warmth enveloped her. For the first time in a long while, fear no longer dictated her breath.

Severus closed the book slowly.

— “Yes,” he said simply.

One word, yet it tied his voice to the poem’s.

Hermione felt that together, they were already stitching a firm seam across the tear — as if, page after page, word after word, they were mending a worn binding, together.